Chapter 961 - 960: A Stupid Truth [Magic Castle Bonus - )

[A/N: This bonus Chapter is thanks to Arcticjeuh!!! Thank you so much.]

———

Somewhere beyond the familiar reaches of the Demon Realm, a figure walked through darkness.

Tap

Tap

A staff touched the pale ground with each unhurried step. Faint blue light shifted across the curved walls, revealing smooth ridges and cracks before slipping away again.

The figure wore white.

Neither the hem of her robe nor the glove wrapped around her staff carried a speck of dirt. Beneath her hood, there was only darkness.

Truth Seeker continued walking.

"You haven’t disappointed me, Blackmoon."

Her soft voice travelled farther than her footsteps.

"All that effort, and you’ve actually given me something to smile about."

She stepped over a narrow crack.

Two Seeds of Sin had been the least she expected. Three had been the most she thought likely.

But Wrath had not been among them.

"The Seed of Wrath..."

She stopped briefly, then released a quiet laugh.

"That should have been the hardest one for you. Or the second-hardest. And I was still making preparations for you to form the seed."

Those preparations could be put aside now.

He would need all the seeds when the final battle came. Each seed mattered. But without Wrath, even possessing the others would leave him terribly weakened.

He would not stand a chance against The One.

Yet he had birthed it without waiting for the opportunity she intended to arrange.

"How inconsiderate. Surprising me before I’ve finished my work."

There was no displeasure in her voice.

She resumed walking, her staff tracing its patient rhythm across the ground.

"And the tribulation lightning. That was something else."

Surviving it would have been an achievement.

Simon had chosen to eat it.

Devour had dismantled the hostile force, allowing him to take what should have destroyed him. But swallowing that power had only been the beginning.

The destructive crimson lightning had begun changing his Nine-tailed Byakko bloodline. Its nature threatened the balance between the tiger’s affinities.

He could have surrendered Wind and Space to preserve the Lightning.

Instead, he had changed them too.

Wind remained Wind. Space remained Space. But both acquired the same destructive nature as the lightning, allowing the three to exist together rather than letting one consume the others.

His remaining affinities had survived as well.

"To change what your bloodline could accept instead of throwing away what it already possessed..."

Truth Seeker shook her head slowly.

"Simply amazing."

Far above her, something enormous passed across a strip of blue light.

She did not look up.

"And then that bastard had to withdraw his gaze."

A laugh escaped her, warmer this time.

"Driven back by a mortal. I would have endured quite a lot just to see that."

The amusement lingered until she remembered how thoroughly The One’s attention had searched Blackmoon’s body.

Not all of that interest had been directed at the boy.

"You were looking for me too, weren’t you?"

Her fingers tightened slightly around the staff.

"Choke on your own laws and powers, you nosy bastard."

The words drifted into the darkness.

Nothing answered.

Truth Seeker continued toward a distant opening, where the blue light was brighter.

"Well, Blackmoon. I think you can manage with a little less protection now."

Keeping his enemies away had required considerably more work than he knew.

The Shadowgrave Clan. Sunless. Caesar.

Thorgan’s brothers and sisters had hardly made things easier.

So many grudges. So many opportunities for someone to arrive before the boy was ready.

"You’ve no idea how troublesome some of them have been."

She had not removed every danger from his path. Nor had she intended to. But there were dangers that taught, and others that ended the possibility of learning anything at all.

Keeping the latter away had become an occupation of its own.

"Keep growing," she murmured. "I would like you to surprise me again."

For a few steps, the only sound was the tapping of her staff.

Then she planted it firmly and stretched her free arm overhead.

"Ah. I really need a break."

She rolled her shoulders.

"All of this for some stupid truth."

A long, low sound passed through the walls around her.

Truth Seeker reached the opening and rested her hand against one of the pale columns beside it.

The column curved upward into a point.

It was a tooth.

Beyond it, black water stretched in every direction.

Truth Seeker was standing inside the open jaws of a colossal dead beast at the bottom of an ocean.

The pale road beneath her feet was its lower jaw. The ceiling that had disappeared into darkness was the roof of its mouth.

Rows of teeth rose around her like towers.

Between two of them, the wreck of an ancient ship hung upright, its broken masts wedged against the bone. Beside those teeth, the entire vessel looked like a splinter caught in a wound.

A thin, transparent film held the ocean outside.

Water pressed against it, bending the blue light shed by creatures moving through the deep. Inside the jaws, the ground remained dry.

Beyond the skull, the beast’s ribs stretched across the seabed. Reefs had grown around them. Some rose above the surrounding ridges, while others disappeared into a trench too deep for even the drifting lights to reveal its bottom.

A school of silver demonic fish passed through the ribs.

Each was larger than a house.

Among those bones, they seemed no larger than insects.

Truth Seeker watched them for a moment, then rested her weight lightly against her staff.

"Playing with fate and destiny can be amusing."

A fish turned beyond the transparent film.

"And dangerous."

She paused.

"And very, very annoying."

Her voice softened again.

"People think that seeing a road is the same as reaching its end. Show them a possible tomorrow, and they begin treating everyone around them as though their choices have already been made."

She looked down at the smooth bone beneath her feet.

"I can leave books where a boy might find them. I can delay an enemy. I can make certain he survives long enough to stand before a door."

Her gloved fingers loosened around the staff.

"But a thousand years of preparation cannot take one step for another person."

The fish disappeared behind a tooth.

"If every answer must resemble what I expected, then I am not seeking the truth. I am merely teaching the world to repeat a lie I happen to like."

She gave a quiet chuckle.

"And I’ve lived too long to mistake that for wisdom."

Truth Seeker turned away from the ocean and resumed her walk.

———

Far away, wind swept across a desert littered with bones.

Sand hissed against half-buried skulls. Long ribs protruded from the dunes, and scattered vertebrae lay along the slopes like broken wheels.

Two figures pushed through the storm.

Caesar’s short black hair whipped against his forehead. His violet eyes narrowed as he leaned into another gust.

Beside him, Korth raised an arm across his face. His emerald eyes, tinged with red at their centres, searched for firmer ground beneath the shifting dunes.

Neither was moving easily.

The wind struck hard enough to force them sideways. Sometimes a step gained almost no distance at all, and both had to brace before trying again.

Korth planted a foot behind an exposed rib and waited for the worst of a gust to pass.

Caesar moved ahead.

Then he stopped.

His head turned, and he looked back across the desert.

Their footprints were already gone. Beyond the nearest dune, there was only sand and the pale shapes of more bones.

A faint amusement entered his eyes.

"It seems Blackmoon is having quite a lot of fun."

Korth looked at him.

"How do you know what he’s doing, brother?"

Caesar gave him a light smile.

"Instincts."

Korth studied him for a moment.

The wind pulled at their clothes. Somewhere beneath the sand, a loose bone knocked against another.

Caesar turned back toward the dunes ahead.

"Let’s go. We have to find what we came here for."